Ask the Author: Saige England
Answered Questions (9)
Saige England
Ideas can't be copyrighted so I never give away a good plot.
Saige England
One thousand and one nights. I would hide behind a curtain drifting dry desert sand, listening spellbound to the tales told by Shahrazad.
Saige England
My Nana led me into adventures. A walk with her was never mundane. One fine morning in Whakatū when I was thirteen she told me we were approaching her favourite house. 'Walk ahead and turn your head when I say so, dear,' she said. I did and she called out. 'Turn your head now!' On a couch on the terrace of his gabled white cottage with blue enamors lay a man. White as the ghost he must have become, face frozen in grotesque agony.
Saige England
Kick it to the kerb. Get on with it. Or lie back and imagine. Find the fun again.
Saige England
Writing gives my life meaning and purpose. I like the flexibility and the sense of adventure. For me, this writing life is not an easy life, it is not about taking the easiest route. It is often hard and painful to find and share the story, to show the pain characters feel, to find a real way out of a struggle. But it is so worthwhile. Readers seem to sense this. I am grateful, so grateful to my readers. I have to pinch myself sometimes. Thank you all.
Saige England
Remember always, that you are writing because you love writing. You want to tell a story. You want to convey meaning. You want to reach readers. You want your characters to meet readers. Work towards that. Take a breath, go out into the world with your book if you can, and start again.
And find inspiring writers to inspire you.
Maya Angelou said that there is nothing worse than the agony of keeping an untold story inside you. But it takes perseverance and dedication to let it out. It takes a willingness to learn. Like any good work, it demands a high price and it won't make you rich. Your aim should not be selfish.
Seek guides for this journey. Know what you don't know and quest for answers. Dig deep, dig wide. Learn from those who have been here before. Be humble. It does take a village to raise a book.
And find inspiring writers to inspire you.
Maya Angelou said that there is nothing worse than the agony of keeping an untold story inside you. But it takes perseverance and dedication to let it out. It takes a willingness to learn. Like any good work, it demands a high price and it won't make you rich. Your aim should not be selfish.
Seek guides for this journey. Know what you don't know and quest for answers. Dig deep, dig wide. Learn from those who have been here before. Be humble. It does take a village to raise a book.
Saige England
I'm working on a trilogy, No Graves for Ghosts. I keep finding intriguing women so they will be in there. And I do find men who behave badly, but there are other men who pause at the juncture between justice and injustice and who make a conscious decision to act differently, in a really good way.
Colonisation was the creation of a fiction engineered from the top down, it involved deceit, lies, and theft. I like finding people who grappled with this injustice. Break them free to speak to readers today. They do want to expose some crimes. The real stories of the common people should be told. They are my heroes. They motivate me.
I'm also working on another book but on that one, my lips are sealed.
Colonisation was the creation of a fiction engineered from the top down, it involved deceit, lies, and theft. I like finding people who grappled with this injustice. Break them free to speak to readers today. They do want to expose some crimes. The real stories of the common people should be told. They are my heroes. They motivate me.
I'm also working on another book but on that one, my lips are sealed.
Saige England
I'm usually roused by my characters at 4am when they come knocking. If I don't get up then it can be a hard slog trying to find them again. I guess the subconscious is stirring. But it is important to consider what they say and whether it fits with the book.
George Saunders told a funny story in his substack on writing about the time he woke and wrote urgently in the wee hours only to scrap what he'd written in the cold light of day: 'Custer In The Bardo'.
So inspiration is tempered by research and this leads to discoveries.
Whenever I gasp in pleasure or shock I know I have something to share.
George Saunders told a funny story in his substack on writing about the time he woke and wrote urgently in the wee hours only to scrap what he'd written in the cold light of day: 'Custer In The Bardo'.
So inspiration is tempered by research and this leads to discoveries.
Whenever I gasp in pleasure or shock I know I have something to share.
Saige England
I find stories in the quiet chambers, people who have been suppressed or oppressed or hidden from view are more interesting to me than celebrities.
I embark on a mission to find the outliers and offsiders who were never acknowledged and yet who played important roles in history and left a legacy.
Who were they? What can I learn from them? I like sharing this learning by retrieving those characters, bringing them back to life.
I deep dive into research and when I find something that makes me gasp or shudder or cry or laugh, I play with that.
Writing is the act of shape-shifting. And really, I do feel, my characters came to me. They came knocking and I let them find the answer.
But the short answer is my research into the whaling trade circa 1832 led to research into a trade in human heads, a trade run by the British aristocracy. I wanted to know how this happened. There were perpetrators and victims in this horrible commercial enterprise. I wanted to find the characters caught in the turmoil of that world, I wanted them to hear them speak and I wanted to see them act.
In life we meet people who have a conscience and those who claim they cannot afford to have a conscience. We meet victims and perpetrators. We meet people caught in a trap, who learn how to rebel.
I embark on a mission to find the outliers and offsiders who were never acknowledged and yet who played important roles in history and left a legacy.
Who were they? What can I learn from them? I like sharing this learning by retrieving those characters, bringing them back to life.
I deep dive into research and when I find something that makes me gasp or shudder or cry or laugh, I play with that.
Writing is the act of shape-shifting. And really, I do feel, my characters came to me. They came knocking and I let them find the answer.
But the short answer is my research into the whaling trade circa 1832 led to research into a trade in human heads, a trade run by the British aristocracy. I wanted to know how this happened. There were perpetrators and victims in this horrible commercial enterprise. I wanted to find the characters caught in the turmoil of that world, I wanted them to hear them speak and I wanted to see them act.
In life we meet people who have a conscience and those who claim they cannot afford to have a conscience. We meet victims and perpetrators. We meet people caught in a trap, who learn how to rebel.
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